Questor Insurance — Car Hire Guide
Is Car Hire Excess Insurance Worth It?
An Honest Guide
Stand at a hire car desk in any airport, anywhere in Europe, and you will be offered an excess waiver. It might cost £20 a day. It might cost £35. The agent will be persuasive, the queue behind you will be growing, and you have to make a decision in about ninety seconds. So is it worth it? Honestly? Mostly, no — not the version they sell at the desk. Here is the longer answer.
What you are actually being asked to insure
When you hire a car, the rental company includes Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) in the price by default. CDW is not optional — you cannot drive off the forecourt without it. What CDW does is cap your liability if the car is damaged or stolen. It does not eliminate that liability.
That cap is the excess. And the excess on a typical hire car in Europe is somewhere between £900 and £2,500. On a premium or specialist vehicle it can be considerably higher. If you scuff a wheel, clip a wing mirror, the rental company will charge you that excess — in full — before you have left the car park.
Excess insurance is what reimburses you for that charge. The question is not whether to have it. The question is who you should buy it from.
The two ways to buy it — and why the price gap is so big
You have two options. You can buy the rental company's own waiver at the desk, or you can buy a standalone policy from a specialist provider before you travel.
The price difference is not subtle. Rental desk waivers in 2026 typically cost between £18 and £35 per day. A standalone single-trip excess policy from a UK specialist tends to cost a small fraction of that — often the equivalent of two or three days of the desk price for a fortnight of cover. On an annual policy covering an unlimited number of trips, the difference becomes dramatic.
So why the gap? Because the desk waiver is a high-margin add-on for the rental company. The agent often earns a commission on it. It is sold under time pressure, to a tired traveller, who has just been told (sometimes quite firmly) that without it they will be liable for thousands. That is not a market designed to deliver fair pricing.
The honest case for buying excess cover
This is where many guides go wrong — they argue you do not need excess cover at all because the chance of damage is low. That is true on any single trip. It is also irrelevant. Insurance is not a bet you expect to win. It is a transfer of a financial risk you cannot comfortably absorb.
Three scenarios where excess cover earns its keep:
The kerbed alloy
You parallel-park on a narrow street in Seville. The kerb is higher than you thought. Two of the four alloys are now scratched. The rental company quotes £340 per wheel, plus £75 administration. Total billed to your card before you have even reached the airport: £1,435.
The motorway stone chip
A lorry on the A9 in France throws up a stone. It hits the windscreen. By the time you return the car the chip has spread into a crack. The rental company replaces the screen and bills you the full £1,200 excess, even though the actual repair was less.
The car park scrape
You return to the hire car after lunch. Someone has scraped the rear quarter panel and driven off. There is no other party, no insurance details, no witness. Under the rental agreement, that damage is on you.
None of these are unlikely. Anyone who has hired cars regularly has experienced at least one of them. And in each case, the excess charge lands on your card immediately — before any dispute, before any independent assessment.
Where the standalone policy wins
If you accept that excess cover makes sense, the comparison between buying at the desk and buying a standalone policy is straightforward. A good standalone policy gives you more cover for less money. Most desk waivers are limited in what they actually cover — tyres, windscreens, roof and underbody damage are commonly excluded, and these are precisely the parts most likely to be damaged. A reasonable standalone policy includes them as standard.
Here is what to look for, and what Questor's car hire excess policy currently provides as a benchmark:
| What's Covered | Cover Limit |
|---|---|
| Excess Reimbursement | £10,000 |
| Tyres, Windscreen, Roof & Underbody | £10,000 |
| Administration Charges | £500 |
| Towing | £1,000 |
| Misfuelling | £1,000 |
| Lost, Stolen or Damaged Keys | £750 |
| Curtailment | £300 |
| Drop-Off Charges | £300 |
| Locked Out Cover | £250 |
| Cancellation Charges | £500 |
| Personal Effects | £300 |
That is a meaningful list. Note in particular the cancellation charges and curtailment cover — cover that pays out if you have to cut a trip short, or cancel it before you start, for a covered reason. Many cheaper policies do not include these.
When excess cover is genuinely not worth it
To be fair to the question, there are situations where excess insurance is poor value or unnecessary:
- Very short rentals at very low excesses. If you are hiring a car for one day and the excess is £300, the cost of any cover is hard to justify against the maximum exposure.
- When your credit card already provides cover. Some premium credit cards include rental car damage cover. Read the terms carefully — the cover is often narrower than it sounds, with notable exclusions on tyres, windscreens and underbody, and reimbursement-only structures that still leave you out of pocket initially.
- Where the rental price already includes a "zero excess" deal. Some rentals, particularly business bookings or premium tariffs, build the waiver in. If the excess is genuinely zero, additional cover adds nothing.
But for the great majority of hires — a week's car in Spain, a fortnight in Florida, a weekend in the Lake District — standalone excess cover is straightforwardly good value.
Single trip or annual?
If you hire a car once a year, a single trip policy is the right answer. If you hire two or more times a year, an annual policy almost always works out cheaper — and it removes the small but real risk of forgetting to arrange cover for a trip.
One detail worth knowing: Questor's annual policy covers individual rentals of up to 31 days as standard, with an Extended Rental optional extra that pushes that to 62 days per rental. That matters if you take longer trips abroad or use a hire car for an extended stay at a holiday home.
What to check before you buy any policy
Not all standalone policies are equal. Before you buy, check:
- The vehicle age limit. Many policies cap the age of the rental vehicle they will cover at 10 years. Older or specialist hire cars can fall outside this. Questor's limit is currently 20 years, which is unusually wide.
- The driver age limits. Some policies have an upper age cap. Questor does not.
- Whether tyres, windscreen, roof and underbody are included. These are the most common damage areas, and the most commonly excluded.
- Whether the policy is a reimbursement policy. Almost all standalone excess policies are. You pay the rental company first, then claim back from the insurer. Make sure you keep the damage report and receipts.
- The territorial cover. Worldwide is not always actually worldwide. Check whether the destinations you typically visit are included.
The verdict
Is it worth it?
Yes, if you buy the right policy from the right place. Excess insurance bought at the rental desk is, in most cases, poor value — expensive, often narrower than it appears, and sold under conditions that do not favour the customer. Excess insurance bought as a standalone policy before you travel is a different proposition: cheaper, broader, and providing genuine financial protection against a charge that can otherwise land on your card without warning.
If you are hiring a car this year, the question is not really "should I have excess cover?" It is "where should I buy it from?"
A final word from Questor
Questor Insurance has been providing vehicle hire excess insurance since 2007. The business is based in Maidstone, Kent, with an in-house customer service and claims team. In 2025, Questor and its sister business in Malta sold over 900,000 vehicle hire excess policies and handled more than 22,000 claims. Sales and claims reviews on Trustpilot both score 5 stars.
If excess cover is something you are considering for an upcoming trip, the team in Maidstone is happy to answer factual questions on 0330 094 4330 or at assistance@questor-insurance.co.uk.